Dan asks:

>A while ago a friend of mine suggested homosexuality is a natural form of 
>population control.  Now having taken a first year course on evolution, I 
>would develop that to say that homosexuality may be a density dependent 
>limiting factor on populations.  Some weak empiracal evidence may be the 
>rise of homosexuality and its acceptance into western society, now as the 
>human population grows exponentially in this post-industrial information 
>age. I am not trying to say homosexuality is a "disease", nor
am I trying to 
>be disrespectful. Afterall heterosexuality was also an evolutionary 
>development (from asexual species).
>
>I am wondering if anyone has ever proposed this formally, such as in 
>academic research?

It is actually a very old idea. Go to Google and type:

     homosexuality "population pressure" (with the quotes)

and you will return 400 entries that address the idea directly. However the
level of evidence that the idea is correct is fairly thin. There was a formal
study in the 1960's with rats that attempted to address the question
experimentally. Unfortunately, I don't remember the article's specifics other
than I am (relatively) sure that the authors reported an increase in homosexual
copulations proportional to the rat population density.

Wirt Atmar
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